WIRCEBURGENSES. – A group of Jesuit professors at the University of Würzburg who together compiled the complete course of theology known as the Theologia Erbipolensis and more commonly as the Theologia Wirceburgensis.
The work was undertaken at the urgent insistence of Prince-Bishop Philipp von Greiffenklau, who had ordered the professors to replace a textbook in use that was too taxing for students by dictating lessons. The professors who collaborated on it were Frs. Heinrich Kilber, Thomas Holzklau, Ignatius Neubauer, and Odo (Odericus) Munier, already known for various treatises published earlier. These were revised and sometimes modified to suit the purpose of a textbook for students, then combined and arranged to form the Theologia dogmatica, polemica, scholastica et moralis lectionibus academicis accomodata (14 vols., Würzburg 1766–71; 2nd ed., 10 vols., Paris 1852–54; 3rd ed., 10 vols., ibid. 1870–80). In this edition, the following volumes were contributed by Fr. Kilber (1710–82): I. Principia theologica (Sacred Scripture, Divine Tradition, the Church of Jesus Christ, Councils, the Roman Pontiff, the Holy Fathers, ecclesiastical theology and canon law, reason and history, heresies, condemned propositions); III (God one and three, angels, creation); VII (sin, grace, justification and merit); VIII (theological virtues with an appendix on the cardinal virtues, drawn from the De justitia et jure of Lessius). Fr. Holzklau (1716–83) contributed vols.: IV (Incarnation of the Divine Word, with a strong defense of the orthodoxy of Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Honorius); VI (On Law and Justice, with an appendix on the virtue of religion, drawn from the work mentioned of Lessius); IX (Sacraments in general, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, with a theological-critical treatise on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, whose authenticity he accepts); X (second part: Holy Orders and Matrimony). Fr. Neubauer contributed vols. II, Tractatus de religione (against atheists, polytheists, Mohammedans, Jews, sectarians, especially Bayle, Voltaire, Rousseau); V (Beatitude, human acts, laws). Fr. Munier contributed: X (first part: Penance and Extreme Unction). The theological course, distinguished by its clarity, order, solidity, and equal attention to speculative and positive elements, thus bringing to a worthy close the ancient theology of Germany (M. Grabmann, Gesch. der kath. Theologie, Freiburg in Br. 1933, p. 196; Italian trans., Milan 1937, p. 273), has always retained its well-deserved reputation, even among more recent theologians such as Scheeben, Hurter, Pesch, and Grabmann.